Hopefully you got the email today from PASS containing these:
Reading them I’m first struck that we often see goals set, but rarely see the end of year scorecard published the same prominence. Which are real goals and which are stretch goals? Are there stretch goals, or are they easy ones? Not always easy to tell looking at them. I’m glad to see something published and overall if they all get achieved PASS and its members are better of than at the start of the year – right?
I read these and wonder, are these good goals:
- Growing SQLSaturday registrations by about 9%. I think reachable. But is registrations the right measure? Why not try to convert more of existing registrations to attendees? Or do both! The typical drop rate is 30-35% of registration. Changing that would be a game changer.
- Redesigning the SQLSaturday web site. Internationalizing – yes! Definitely needed to support the international part of PASS. But beyond that, what are we fixing and why? With IT resources in short supply, isn’t the existing site ‘good enough’?
- Growing the global speaker pool. I’m all for it, but the right way to grow the pool is to have events that need speakers. They need places to practice and learn, they can’t just show up at the Summit.
- Enlist 100% of volunteers through the volunteer portal. Bad? No, but is that the right goal? Why do we care where volunteers sign up?
I know it’s easy to throw rocks from the outside. Some goals are better than no goals. I worry that these goals were set in the Board room and not in the real world. Imagine we could as members could vote on goals – would we vote for these (none are horrible) or would we rank others higher?
